Liberal towns backtrack on license plate trackers amid concerns about privacy | Hacker News Reader

Liberal towns backtrack on license plate trackers amid concerns about privacy

politico.com

One weird thing never discussed with Flock is any hard evidence that Flock cameras actually contribute to solving crimes, and what kind of crimes they help with. You have to assume it is helping at least to some degree... since cops are generally in favor of them.

They've got to have the data... For the public to make an informed decision, the police should be able to say "hey, Flock contributed to solving 100 crimes last year, 99% of which were minor property crimes like theft or vandalism and 1% was violent crime. If you get rid of these, some of these crimes may not be solved as quickly or at all." And then if you get rid of the cameras, people don't have to worry about police abusing the system, the feds getting up in individuals lives, and anyone persecuting specific groups of people.

Their comms guy just basically says "not that many departments are actually cancelling", "i empathize", and "the customers had it set up incorrectly to let the feds in"... What?!

Another thing I would add to this is that while sure one could block Flock cameras, they can't stop all the newer cars that have 8 or more cameras on them and upload to a cloud. Then there are all the home cameras that can and should log everything going up and down the road to get the plates of porch pirates, kidnappers, etc... Also a number of commercially available cameras can record license plates and while they do not have the ability to query the DMV database one can just turn over access to law enforcement. It will not be long before it is impossible to go to most places without being on at least a few cameras, even out in my remote location.

> You have to assume it is helping at least to some degree... since cops are generally in favor of them. No, I assume the exact opposite. Cops and people who are law enforcement adjacent lie and obfuscate all the time. They have no real reason to need it but they know they can get their hands on it, so they do. Any justification happens after the fact, when it will be harder to take away.

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